Patriots Point, USS Yorktown honors 9/11 victims

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCBD) – Patriots Point honored the 2,977 people whose lives were lost during the terrorist attacks on September 11, by blowing the USS Yorktown’s horn six times to symbolize each of the fateful events that occurred 21 years ago.

“Never forget” that’s the message Patriots Point sent by blaring the Yorktown’s horn Sunday morning.

“To the core,” Patriots Point director of communications Chris Hauff said, “today, we are here to remember the lives lost on September 11^th, and what that attack meant to this country. You know, it changed us forever.”

Officials with the naval museum say they want the horn to foster patriotism and memorialize those lost on that tragic Tuesday morning.

“By something this loud and this strong of a message with the ship’s horn,” Hauff said, “we hope that that resonates with the people and it reminds them after not the first or second, but six horns this morning, how important that day was and why it’s so important for us to mark it every year.”

Several visitors aboard the Yorktown knew people who died during the attacks.

“I had worked for a company called Komatsu, building industrial equipment in the Boston area,” Patriots Point visitor Rock Nemeth said. “We had a distributor that had been visiting us and he was on one of those planes that crashed into the towers.”

“I had a friend,” Karen McGreevy said, “Steven Coakley and he was one of the people that died in he came to the Lowcountry to help when we had Hugo and he was one of the people that died in 9/11.”

Others say they remember exactly where they were on that day.

“I sat down on the phone with my sister,” Stacey Fox said, “watching the news as the second plane came into the building, and it was just like the bottom fell out. I was so sad for everybody that was there.”

Now, Patriots Point uses the USS Yorktown’s horn to make sure we “never forget.”

“Moments like this days,” Hauff said, “years later, decades later now, it’s something that’s important that you do. You don’t block it out, you remember it.”